


Bitter Fruit

by elementalv



Category: Blade Runner (1982)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalv/pseuds/elementalv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy Batty looks for god in all the wrong places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, enormous thanks to emmymau and isiscolo for their last-minute betas.
> 
> Written for flesh

 

 

The decision to hijack the shuttle is an easy one to make, despite his owners’ efforts to train him to obedience and loyalty. Five months from the fourth anniversary of his incept date, Roy realizes that he is ready to move on with the rest of his life, and the only way he can make sure he has a life to move on with is to pay a visit to Tyrell, the replicants’ very own god.

Now, flying over the Los Angeles Basin and trying to find meaning in the random bursts of flame from overheated smoke stacks, Roy wonders what he will find when he meets Tyrell. Will the man be worthy of worship, or will he be a false god, worth only the effort it will take to kill him? It’s an interesting question, and it’s one he wishes he could share with someone else, but he’s the only A who decided to return to Earth. The others planned to take as many humans as possible with them when they die, which seems a waste to Roy. He’s tired of war’s mass slaughter and doesn’t understand why the others aren’t as well.

At least Pris decided to come along for the ride. She’s the only person, replicant or human, that he gives a damn about. She’s a month younger than he, but because of the extra training he needed after incept, the pair of them were deployed at the same time — he to a combat zone, and she to a combat zone whorehouse. Roy still has fond memories of the things she taught him about sex on the way out from Earth.

Leon finally calls out coordinates, and Roy leans over the pilot’s seat. The woman reeks of fear and urine, has done so since Roy killed her copilot a million kilometers from Mars, and she twitches when Roy touches her shoulder.

“Land where he said,” Roy tells her.

“That —” Her jaw moves for a moment before she pulls herself together enough to say, “That’s the ocean.”

“So?”

“We’ll die.”

Roy looks back at the human passengers, all of them huddled together, then looks down at the pilot again.

“So?”

~*~*~

“What are you thinking?” she asks, her voice coy and shy and far more knowing than anyone, human or replicant, should be. They’ve been on Earth for four days, and this is what Pris has learned from talking to human whores. Roy isn’t sure whether to be proud of her achievement or appalled by it. If he were human, he’s certain he would know the correct response.

“Do you care?”

He isn’t especially interested in her answer; he asks only because he’s grown concerned of late that he should be more human-like than not. If he’s to live a human lifespan, he must eliminate the behaviors that mark him as other than human. He isn’t sure this is the correct response, but he knows that a response of some sort is necessary to make him seem more like a man. More real.

“No,” she says with a small giggle.

Pris, on the other hand, doesn’t care at all whether or not she sounds like a real woman, and she never has. By training and inclination, she’s the perfect military whore and has never wanted to be anything else. However, now that she’s three months shy of her own death day, she’s taken to mocking humans whenever possible.

Roy considers it a moment longer and decides the question sounds like —

“You’ve been watching movies again, haven’t you?” He turns in time to see a sly smile cross her face.

“Maybe.”

Roy cups her face then gives her a gentle pat on the cheek and considers whether to fuck her. Or maybe he should just watch her fuck Leon. Zhora left to find her own future just two days after they landed, and Leon has been lost without her. If sex doesn’t help Leon, then in another day or two Roy will send him to Tyrell Corporation to see if he can get information about their sequencing. Leon is only a C, but he should be able to do what’s necessary. At the very least, Roy hopes the task will put an end to Leon’s moping.

His decision made, Roy continues his conversation with Pris, like any human would. “Did you enjoy the movie?”

“There wasn’t enough fucking or blood,” she answers. “And no one died at the end.”

“So the answer is no?”

“The answer is no.”

~*~*~

Earth, with its endless rain that dulls everything and cleans nothing, is a disappointment to Roy. He was never so foolish as to believe that it would be a paradise of any sort, but he _had_ hoped it would be at least marginally better than the colonies. In retrospect, he should have known better. After all, what were the colonies if not a microcosm of the world that spawned humans?

Still, Earth has its good points. One of them is the fact that Roy and the others can blend so easily among the humans. They can walk down a street and be granted the same anonymity as anyone born of woman, and that, if nothing else, makes the trouble of hijacking the shuttle seem worthwhile. Another point to the positive is the variety of food available on Earth. None of it tastes very good, but it’s cheap and plentiful, so Roy and Pris and Leon are able to keep up their strength without effort.

Roy sighs at the thought of Leon and is pleased at the way the sigh sounds. To his ears, it’s at least as good as a sigh he heard in one of Pris’s movies, which means he’s better able to pass for human. Roy sighs again, because really, the thought of Leon is worth at least two sighs.

He should have known better than to send Leon — or any replicant, really — to Tyrell Corporation. Despite the overwhelming stupidity of humanity in general, a few of them _are_ intelligent, and it only makes sense that they would send someone after Roy and his followers.

“Leon.”

“Yeah?”

“Leave the body alone,” Roy says. “I need to find Pris and send her to talk to this Sebastian.”

“You think he’ll help us?” Leon stands up and kicks the corpse before joining Roy at the door.

“Yes. Pris is quite persuasive when she chooses to be.”

~*~*~

He’s a god-killer now, he supposes. Looking at Tyrell’s body, he wishes he felt something other than indifference. The fact is that killing Tyrell was no different than killing any other human, which strikes Roy as odd. Tyrell’s death should have had more significance than it did, and that, Roy worries, is proof that replicants are inferior to humans.

Roy doesn’t have time to think about it now, though. Zhora and Leon are dead, and Pris might be soon as well if he doesn’t get back to Sebastian’s place in time. He races through the rain and throws open the door.

Fuck. Pris is dead, killed by the same son of a human who killed Zhora and Leon. Roy’s hope for a real life ended with Tyrell’s death sentence — nothing can be done to save him now or ever — but maybe he can take the route the other A’s took out in the colonies. Maybe he can take Deckard with him as he dies.

If he can kill Deckard, maybe Roy will be able to redeem himself for all the mistakes he’s made since returning to Earth.

But in the end, Roy’s rage and hatred aren’t enough to see him through this one last task. His blood pours out as the rain pours down. Roy’s death will mean nothing to anyone, and he has no time left to change that.

Failure is no longer an option. It’s unavoidable, and the knowledge is bitter fruit to swallow.

 


End file.
